Raury hit the pinnacle of his new-artist hype-cycle last week with this picture (and assume future work) with Kanye West, but, as we all know, without good music, the hype is unwarranted. Fortunately, we can now say with his debut project, Indigo Child, finally out, that it's very real, and by real, we mean meet-one-of-your-favourite-new-artists real, because Indigo Child is unabashedly confident, daring, and, in the musical sense, absolutely genre-bending. Indeed, IC is full of feel-good songs, epic anthems, familial tantrums, and more, and they all sound like they were crafted in ways way beyond the scope of the norm. Raury's sound is rooted in hip-hop, but don't even bother putting him in that just-a-rapper box, because as you will find on tracks like, "Superfly" and "Amor", the 18-year-old moves from singing cadences to free-flowing, Andre 3000-esque raps. His transitioning is quite flawless, and against the backdrop of the ever-changing, full-of-life instrumentations (that he himself provides throughout), the scope of each track is completely different from the next, yet impactful and entirely impressive. We've become familiar with the previously released "Sunshine", "God's Whisper", and "Cigarette Song"—all good tracks in their own regard—but with the rest of this album now available, it's only going to take a lone listen through it to realize Raury is making a kind of music ready for the whole world to enjoy. Indigo Child spans thirteen tracks, and it's completely free, but here's the catch: you need to head on over to http://www.indigochildproject.com/ and play a game within the site and reach a score of 1,500 in order to download it. Of course, there will be free download links through Google if you search hard enough, but we encourage you to at least check out the thoughtful endeavor when you've the time. For convenience's sake, we've listed some of our favorite cuts from the album below, but know that the project as a whole is not one you'll want to skip through. EDIT: As if we needed any more reason to jump on the Raury bandwagon (or just appreciate any of his offerings any more), it seems that we missed seeing Vancouver Sleep Clinic's presence on "Superfly", one of our favorite tracks of the young man's from his body of work. So with that information now handily in tow, we suggest you listen again to the effort and extract even more enjoyment out of it.
Raury